MK on Rhetorical Invention

Invention as a Social Act advocates for a change in the way we view rhetorical invention, favoring a shift away from the culturally dominant Platonic view to a more socially grounded definition.  LeFevre spends the opening sections of her book outlining a continuum of possible invention perspectives.  I thought it might be interesting to see if I could find a corresponding example for each major subsection of the continuum within the framework of modern American popular culture.  Why pop culture?  I offer two reasons: one, I believe LeFevre has already done an excellent job citing examples from within academia and the professional arena, and two, I think that pop culture informs the rhetorical definitions of a large portion of the population, and is therefore an important medium to take into analytic consideration.    

The Platonic View

LeFevre’s Definition:      
“Western thought has emphasized…a view of rhetorical invention founded on a belief that truth is
accessible by purely individual efforts…Invention, according to this view, occurs largely through
introspective self-examination”  (11).

“In the romantic tradition, the inspired writer is apart from others and wants to keep it this way, either to
prevent himself and his creations from being corrupted by society, or to maintain a necessary madness
(in the style of Poe) that is thought to be, at least in part, the source of art”  (17).

Pop Culture Example:         

              

The Phantom (real name: Erik) is a monster-genius who lives in a set of elaborate catacombs he designed and built beneath an opera house—because in addition to being a musical prodigy, he is also a brilliant architect.  The Phantom is the quintessential “truth from within” inventor: no music lessons, no architectural apprenticeship, nobody to work with or even talk to.  Just as he was born with his facial deformity, he was likewise born with his genius (which his appearance doomed him to practice in solitude).  While I suppose one could argue that poor Erik is inspired by Christine, and therefore more in line with an inner-dialogic, Elliot-type of inventor, I would counter that Erik was inventing beautiful art long before she showed up in the chorus line.  

The Internal Dialogic View

LeFevre’s Definition:      
“The internal dialogic view holds that the individual invents by carrying on an inner conversation or
dialectic with another ‘self’ that also functions as a bridge to the rest of the social world.  This internal
partner often acts as a monitor and guide; it may function as a construct embodying features of one’s
audience”  (54).

Pop Culture Example:

John Padgett, an exceedingly eccentric typewriter-clacking novelist, showed up in a sixth-season episode of The X-Files called “Milagro.”  His inner dialogic with “another self” is so well constructed that the other self literally becomes a real person, capable of physically interacting with the social world.  When Padgett is struck with writer’s block or is unsure of what his characters should do or say or how they should behave, the other self appears before him as a physical person (not Padgett, but a different man) with the answers.  Padgett is helpless to oppose this other man’s dictates because the other man speaks the “truth.”  Unfortunately for the social world (and poor Agent Scully), Padgett’s inner self is homicidal and by the episode’s end, has murdered three people and nearly strangled Scully to death.    

The Collaborative View

LeFevre’s Definition:          

“With a collaborative view of rhetorical invention, we begin to be concerned with overt social relationships.  People become partners in the process of creating ideas” (62).  LeFevre goes on to detail three kinds of inventive collaboration: invention by interacting, joint invention, and social contexts for invention. 

Pop Culture Example:

Dr. House is a misanthropic medical genius with a crippled leg and a Vicodin addiction.  He makes heavy use of the Eureka Moment trope, ending nearly every episode with a flash-from-above moment of medical breakthrough that saves the Patient of the Week.  Except that the flash-from-above more often comes in the form of collaborative invention.  Dr. House has a team of doctors who serve as catalysts for his ideas, providing feedback, acting as sounding boards and ethical guides, and giving House a social context to interact his way to brilliance.  This is, I think, a good example of what LeFevre describes as “people contributing ideas to assist someone identified as the primary agent of invention” (69). 

The Collective View: 

LeFevre’s Definition:       
LeFevre’s explanation of collective invention is based on the theoretical framework of Emile
Durkheim: “When individuals live together, orienting their behavior to one another and harmonizing
their actions, they give rise to society, a collective unit that is greater than the sum of its individual parts.
Society emerges from the interactions of individuals and in turn influences them to act in certain ways”
(80-81).

To make the connection to invention: “Forces exerted by social collectives prohibit some inventions
and promote others” (78). 

Pop Culture Example:

 There is a character in 1984 named Syme who works with Winston at the Ministry of Truth.  His job is to aid in the creation of a NewSpeak Dictionary, which will contain considerably less words than any standard English dictionary that came before.  Why?  Syme (who will soon be vaporized for his intelligence) speculates that a language without words describing seditious activities will produce a society who cannot behave in seditious ways.  If there is no world for “revolt,” then actual revolution becomes impossible.  This of course serves the aims of the Party, the ruling institution of the novel, and by attempting to control the language they are attempting to prohibit unwanted forms of invention. 

Questions for Class:

Do you think the Platonic view of invention is as prevalent in today’s society as LeFevre suggests it is at the time of her book’s publication?